Ch 3

III

One spring day after the lunch hour, the Count presented a serious malaise. The anguish between contained sobs and expressions of anguish indicated that the time they all feared was not long in coming. It was evident that the grim reaper had entered, and with his victim he was to depart, leaving the girl alone in her tender age.

Baimei was not crowned. Her rights were de facto, they were not the product of any marriage, she had no legal standing. She was the lady co-ruler of the territory of the wasteland, home of the locusts and snakes, servant of his distant and indifferent majesty. A sealed destiny. Any day the lords of the desert would come for their tribute and she would be the amount offered to pay. It was a fate sung with the death of the only ones who could defend her from the bad times that like winter clouds hovered over that small property.

The old witch doctor was now an additional shadow in the crumbling castle. Sitting under the old bamboo, he told her things that a young lady should not listen to. The art of the arts of other arts.... Undoubtedly things full of evil. An ungodly man should not look at a daughter of his lord, who gave her soul to the belief of the one who died for the love of all mankind.

Everyone had a grudge against her. He did not like to eat pork, he did not bow with respect when he had to pass in front of the family temple. The sorcerer was undoubtedly a bad man. Filling his head with bad advice from a young girl who had not yet menstruated and did not know how to baste....

When all the women had the opportunity, they combed her shiny black hair, different from the common black of these lands. Between brushing and brushing, they told her not to let herself be tempted by the mysteries that this ugly, snub-nosed man dared to tell her. There was no doubt that this advice was against the morals of the monks. She had to obey. Women were born to procreate, to obey men, and to accept with resignation their place in this society.

They were still standing in the middle of the large weapons room, alone, in the dark, she was a daughter of the night, she was a daughter that if they left her would be absorbed by the power of darkness. That was when they began to throw sacred water on her, surround her with lighted candles and pray to protect her from evil spirits. The mother had to be scared away. They said she would appear. When the girl was asleep, more than one saw her, contemplating on the end of the bed, the product of that night that her bad memory took her straight to a grave where she could not lie. The remorse of never having loved her would not let her rest in peace. Now she was coming back. She could be seen standing at three o'clock in the morning, always in the shadows. They wanted to scare her away. But they could not. She could be seen outside the gates, when the dogs began to howl...

Xu go away...Xu rest in peace...

She paid no attention...The remorse...The remorse that bit the spirit of the one who could never rest.

His few soldiers, one-armed, lame, lazy, ex-convicts, were without pay, without guidelines, and very soon they began to proceed in another way, very much at odds with the behavior they were supposed to show.

They began to dine at the immense dining room table.

At first they tried to dissimulate when the young lady appeared silently at the immense lintel of the main door. Then they didn't even keep up appearances. They brought women, they feasted dancing on the table, they drank abundant liquors, they roasted hens in the immense chimney that was only for heating in the winter the gentlemen owners of the castle. They ignored her, they kept neither reverence nor distance, and the services hurriedly took the girl away, mute before those absurdities that she had to contemplate. The screams, the revelry was the corollary that indicated the end of the reign of the heraldry that for many years governed that sad place.

IV

One afternoon, the witch doctor was mercilessly beaten by the chief guard, who dragged him beyond the moat, laughing as he watched the poor old man on a sad donkey ride off to Pest. Baimei was left in the castle. He was just another picture that barely decorated the place.

To celebrate, the soldiers stole some chickens from a villager who had no time to hide them, took the last of the consecration wine from the rickety chapel far away at the crossroads with the royal road.

The girl appeared and for a while contemplated them. She spoke to them, but no one seemed to hear her.

--I want to go for a walk. Would someone please accompany me,?--" she asked in the midst of the francachela.